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Each year, the Hansard Society conducts an Audit of Political Engagement, which seeks to measure how the public views and engages with the political process. The latest Audit demonstrates that public dissatisfaction with our political systems and actors is worryingly high and increasingly intense. However, as Lawrence McKay explains, disaffection has not yet translated into disengagement.

The Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement,now in its sixteenth year, is an annual study, giving a benchmark to measure public opinion about politics and the political system, as well as how engaged people are in the process. The Society describes it as an ‘annual health check’ – and this time round, the patient is in a bad way. Commentators love to declare a crisis, and the Societyhas often cautioned against such framing. More often than not, there is more continuity than change. Yet this year’s findings can hardly be described any other way.

Opinions of the system of governing are at their lowest point in the 15-year Audit series – worse now than in the aftermath of the MPs’ expenses scandal. People are pessimistic about the country’s problems, and large segments of the public seem willing to entertain radical changes which would alter or even undermine our democracy. While they are no less engaged in the democratic process, many people increasingly want to keep their distance and not to take part in decision-making.

Discontent: more widespread and more intense

The striking thing about this year’s Audit is that not only are more people unhappy, but the intensity of their discontent is unprecedented. Our ‘core indicators’ are the best evidence that something is amiss – in particular, our question on ‘the present system of governing Britain’, and how much it could be improved. We find that discontent is at its historical peak, with more than seven-in-ten feeling it needs either ‘quite a lot’ or ‘a great deal’ of improvement. Furthermore, people are moving into the most negative category. The proportion who stated that it needs ‘a great deal’ of improvement, at 37%, has roughly doubled since the first Audit in 2004. This increased discontent is broad-based, occurring across all social classes, age groups and levels of education. If there is a common thread to where it occurs, it is among non-voters where discontent has risen most. It may be that people who are already disengaged are finding more reasons to hate politics, but many voters are, too.

Yet, while the wider system is held in contempt, it is mostly political actors that bear the brunt of this. We asked our respondents to give their level of confidence in different groups ‘to act in the best interests of the public’. Groups like civil servants and judges generally garnered positive ratings, but the government, MPs, Lords and political parties were judged more negatively, with around two-in-three expressing low or no confidence. The exception – in line with results of previous studies – was local councils and the Scottish government who were seen somewhat more positively than UK-wide actors. Continue reading →

On 18 June, the Constitution Unit and the Hansard Society co-hosted an event in parliament marking the launch of Representation in Britain, a four-year ESRC funded study of parliamentary candidates standing in the 2015 and 2017 general elections by the Representative Audit of Britain (RAB) team. Lotte Hargrave offers a summary of what was said.

Professor Rosie Campbell, Professor of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London

Professor Campbell began by introducing the motivation for the study, citing the need for a reliable source of data on the profiles, motivations, and opinions of parliamentary candidates. The RAB began as a study of candidates standing in the 2015 general election, however following Theresa May’s decision to instigate a snap election, the team also surveyed candidates standing in 2017. Campbell noted the survey’s response rates – 57% in 2015 and 51% in 2017 – figures comparable with, and in some cases higher than, previous candidate studies. Alongside the survey, in 2015, 44 qualitative interviews were carried out that proved invaluable for reinforcing the robust nature of the quantitative data. Campbell highlighted that the purpose of the Audit was not to offer policy recommendations to parties or parliament, but to provide an independent and reliable source of data on the attitudes and experiences of UK parliamentary hopefuls.Continue reading →

Today saw the start of two days of report stage debate in the House of Commons on the content of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. At committee stage, amendments were made that created a new sifting committee for statutory instruments related to Brexit. Joel Blackwell, of The Hansard Society, argues below that the current proposals are insufficient to guarantee proper scrutiny and makes several recommendations for changes that can be made before the bill passes to the House of Lords.

The EU (Withdrawal) Bill, which returned to the House of Commons for its report stage today, was successfully amended at committee stage in December 2017 to create a mechanism which will allow MPs, via a new European Statutory Instruments sifting committee, to consider statutory instruments (SIs) made under the Bill’s widest delegated powers and recommend an upgrade in the level of scrutiny of those about which they have most concern.

This new scrutiny mechanism, incorporated through a series of amendments tabled by Procedure Committee Chair Charles Walker, is intended to constrain the wide Henry VIII powers the government will use to make changes to retained EU law via SIs (under clauses 7, 8 and 9 of the Bill).

But if MPs are serious about scrutinising the changes arising from Brexit, these amendments, and the related proposals to amend Standing Orders will, as currently drafted, offer only limited help. If MPs are not happy with what the government wants to do, they will still be unable to exercise any real influence on the substance of a Brexit SI.

On 9 January, the Trade Bill successfully passed its second reading stage in the House of Commons. Intended to regulate the implementation of international trade agreements after Britain leaves the EU, it is one of the most important pieces of Brexit-related legislation currently going through parliament. In this post, which originally appeared on the website of the Hansard Society, Dr. Brigid Fowler argues that the role of parliament in influencing the drafting and agreement of British trade treaties has the potential to be weakened, not strengthened by Brexit should this bill become law.

The Trade Bill, which had its second reading debate on Tuesday, is one of the most important pieces of Brexit legislation. It is a framework Bill enabling the UK to implement the non-tariff elements of future international trade agreements, where those agreements are with states with which the EU has signed a trade agreement by the date the UK leaves.

The Bill’s broad aim is the same as that of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill – which has its report stage consideration in the House of Commons on 16–17 January – and indeed of the government’s overall Brexit approach: to minimise the disruption to business and consumers at the moment when the UK leaves the EU on 29 March 2019.

But, as regards trade agreements, the EU (Withdrawal) Bill on its own cannot do the job, because capturing the provisions of trade agreements that the EU might sign right up to Brexit day may require domestic implementing powers that last beyond those in that Bill.

The EU (Withdrawal) Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons by a relatively comfortable margin in the early hours of Tuesday morning. During the remainder of its parliamentary passage the government is likely to come under greater pressure, particularly on the issue of the delegated powers in the bill. On 13 September the BBC’s Mark D’Arcy and the Hansard Society’s Ruth Fox spoke about the prospects at the Constitution Unit. Alex Diggens and Jack Sheldon summarise what was said.

The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill looks set to be one of the most significant and controversial pieces of legislation to pass through parliament in recent memory. Ostensibly a bill to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and manage the process of converting EU law into domestic law, the bill has far greater scope. It hands significant delegated powers to ministers, allowing them to make changes to remedy supposed ‘deficiencies’ in both secondary and primary legislation through statutory instruments (SIs) and to implement the eventual withdrawal agreement. It also has major implications for the devolution settlements, as outlined in a previous blog post.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning the bill received its second reading in the Commons by the relatively comfortable margin of 326 votes to 290. However, the upcoming Commons committee and report stages, as well as the bill’s passage through the House of Lords, are likely to pose much greater difficulty for the government. On 13 September the Constitution Unit held a seminar to discuss the prospects. Chaired by the Unit’s Dr Alan Renwick, the panel comprised two experts on the dynamics at play: Mark D’Arcy, the BBC’s Parliamentary Correspondent, and Dr Ruth Fox, Director of the Hansard Society.

Dr Alan Renwick introduces the seminar

Mark D’Arcy

Mark D’Arcy focused his remarks on the party-political landscape in relation to the bill and the key types of amendments that are being brought forward.

On the party-political landscape, D’Arcy argued that the bill’s passage will be a drawn-out battle, but one that the government go into reasonably confidently. He said that 10 Downing Street is working hard to keep open links with all of the Conservative factions, and that none of them is seeking to kill the bill. The Tory ‘Remain’ contingent in the Commons is small, and they recall the infighting during the Major years; they therefore recognise that actively fighting Brexit would be ‘career death’. D’Arcy suggested that ‘Bregretters’ might be a more accurate term for this group as they do not actually seek to prevent Brexit. The House of Lords have expressed significant reservations about the bill, notably through the influential Constitution Committee, but D’Arcy predicted that they will be constrained by not wanting to be seen fighting against ‘the people’.

As soon as the second reading vote went through the Commons, queues were forming to put amendments forward. The ‘Bregretters’ put down several, led by the former Attorney General Dominic Grieve. The focus of their amendments was on overseeing the technical operation of the bill, particularly on identifying which SIs require thorough parliamentary scrutiny. Another group of amendments comes from the Labour ‘Remain’ group. These tend to be more ambitious – they keep open options for the future, for instance the option to remain in the Customs Union, or perhaps even the European Economic Area. Other groups have more niche concerns – for example, some MPs are pushing to entrench specific rights provided by EU law.

In the newly published Great Repeal Bill white paper, the government makes much of the theme ‘taking back control’. But the paper’s content does little to alleviate the fear that it is the executive, not parliament, that will benefit from the Great Repeal Bill process. The Hansard Society’s Ruth Fox has five initial questions raised by the white paper.

1/ When will the parliamentary votes on any Brexit deal be held?

The white paper seems to reveal confusion in the government’s position regarding the timing of the votes that it has promised both chambers of parliament on the Brexit deal. In the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech and at the start of the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill second reading debate on 31 January the government said that the votes would be held before the deal ‘comes into force’. By the second day of the bill’s committee stage on 7 February, the government said that it would bring forward a motion to approve the deal ‘before it is concluded’. In the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday and her foreword to the white paper today, she reverted to the original ‘before it comes into force’ position. But paragraph 1.19 of the white paper reintroduces ‘before it is concluded’. This may be carelessness, but the two phrases could mean very different things. Parliament now needs urgently to clarify with the government when exactly in the process it plans to put any final Brexit deal to the vote.

2/ Is the government’s description of the delegated legislation process accurate?

On page 23 of the white paper, the government states that parliamentary procedures allow parliament to scrutinise as many or as few statutory instruments as it sees fit, and notes that parliament can and regularly does both debate and vote on secondary legislation.

What the white paper omits to mention, however, is that secondary legislation subject to the negative scrutiny procedure (the majority of this type of legislation) can only be debated if an MP ‘prays’ against it via an Early Day Motion (EDM). Even then, whether it is debated lies in the hands of the government, not parliament. Paragraph 3.21 states that under the negative procedure members of either chamber can ‘require’ a debate and if necessary a vote. In fact, they can ‘request’ these, but they cannot ‘require’ them. The government controls the parliamentary timetable in the House of Commons, and it must therefore agree to grant the time for any debate. In the last parliamentary session, MPs debated just 3 per cent of the 585 negative instruments laid before them. And although the Leader of the Opposition and his front bench colleagues tabled 12 prayer motions for a debate, just five were granted.

Sometimes the government doesn’t prevent a debate but runs down the clock and builds in delays that minimise the ability of MPs to revoke a regulation. In the last week alone, the opposition had to secure an emergency debate under Standing Order 24 in order to debate the new Personal Independence Payment Regulations. 179 MPs from eight different parties prayed against the SI via an EDM, but the government only scheduled a debate for 19 April, 16 days after the ‘praying against’ period would have expired. This makes revocation difficult. The emergency debate was a means to air the issues before the annulment period came to an end, but it had no force, as there was no substantive vote on the regulations.

There are two scenarios for the way in which parliament’s handling of Brexit affects its position in the UK’s democratic system – one in which Brexit strengthens the executive, and one in which parliament emerges enhanced. Which of these prevails could have an effect long after the UK leaves the EU, writes the Hansard Society’s Brigid Fowler. If parliament has a ‘good Brexit’, it could strengthen its standing in relation to both the executive and the public.

The UK’s vote to leave the EU was ‘a vote to restore … our parliamentary democracy’, the Prime Minister declared in her January 17 Brexit speech. Theresa May suggested that the UK’s possession of ‘the principle of parliamentary sovereignty [as] the basis of our unwritten constitutional settlement’ was among the reasons the country decided it cannot continue to operate inside a supranational framework. And yet this reaffirmation of the traditional role of the UK parliament, delivered as part of one of the most important prime ministerial policy announcements in a generation, was delivered in a building managed by the Foreign Office, not at Westminster.

The irony has not been lost on many politicians and commentators reacting to Mrs May’s speech, including the Leader of the Opposition. The disjunction seemed to encapsulate one of the central tensions in the Brexit process, namely its potential to either expand or undermine the role of parliament in the UK’s democratic system. Especially now that the arguments about process that surrounded the Prime Minister’s speech have been followed by the Supreme Court’s ruling on the scope of the government’s prerogative powers, they have refocused attention on the implications of Brexit for the legislature.

Regardless of positions on Brexit, and the type of Brexit the Prime Minister has now said she will pursue, the EU referendum and withdrawal process represents a significant challenge to the UK’s traditional system of representative democracy. The UK is now embarked on one of the most consequential policies of its post-1945 history without this ever having been the policy of a government formed as a result of a general election. Before the referendum, EU withdrawal was the official policy of only two of the ten parties represented in the House of Commons (not counting Sinn Féin), mustering nine MPs between them (eight DUP and one UKIP). Taking Conservative, Labour and UUP splits into account, only 158 of 650 MPs – 24% – are reckoned to have backed ‘Leave’. The proportion of peers backing Brexit was probably even lower.

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The Constitution Unit in the Department of Political Science at University College London is the UK’s leading research body on constitutional change.

This blog features regular posts from academics and practitioners covering a wide range of constitutional issues in the UK and overseas. You can navigate by theme and contributor using the menus at the top of this page, and subscribe to receive new posts to your inbox below.

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